Training Calendar

Color Vowel FAST© is an self-paced introduction to the Color Vowel® Approach. FAST training entails completing four video-based modules and taking companion quizzes for each module that you complete at your own pace. FAST training fulfills one of three requirements for Level 1 certification. Learn more about Level 1 certification requirements here.

Practice the rhythms and sounds of English and boost your speaking confidence with Pure English Practice, a brain-based pronunciation ‘workout’ for English learners. Teachers, invite your learners! Learners, invite your teachers! PEP happens on the first and third Thursday of each month.

To attend Pure English Practice, subscribe here. After subscribing, you will receive reminders and links for our next event.

Gain pronunciation coaching experience and insight throughout this 6-week experience as you support participants in our Pronunciation for English Teachers workshop. Working closely with your practicum mentor and coaching cohort, you will lead select class activities and provide feedback to between 1-3 participants enrolled in our 5-week Pronunciation for English Teachers (PET) workshop.

Prerequisite: Coaching Practicum candidates must have completed all three Level 2 Core workshops, including Color Vowel Yoga, Spelling Exploration, and Rhythm & Chants.

This course is for non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) who wish to increase their own confidence with English pronunciation.

In this 5-session practice-based course taught by Karen Taylor and her team of Color Vowel Level 2 Coaches, participants will engage in a series of brain-based English pronunciation exercises that build awareness of the sounds and rhythms of English for the purpose of being more confident in their spoken English.

Learn how to preview, lead, and close chants with learners using existing chants and modified chants. Workshop participants will:

• Learn how chants support brain-based language learning;
• Practice priming, leading and closing a chant with clear gestures;
• Master three Color Vowel chants and their variations;
• Learn when and where chants are most effective in a lesson.

In this 4-week online workshop facilitated by Shirley Thompson, co-author of The Color Vowel Chart, participants will learn about and exchange ideas related to:

• Identifying the strengths and limitations of an ESL/EFL textbook;
• Recognizing activity types that can easily be adapted for speaking practice;
• Using simple Color Vowel mark-ups to enhance textbook activities;
• Using more advanced mark-ups to scaffold students’ effective use of intonation, linking, reduction, and blending in their spoken English;
• Applying all of these strategies to a chapter or unit in a textbook of the participant’s choosing as part of a culminating project.

Color Vowel Complete combines live training with asynchronous learning to immerse you in the use the Color Vowel® Approach and our pronunciation app, Blue Canoe. During this 5-week course, you will learn how to use powerful, brain-based strategies to teach learner pronunciation, vocabulary development, and oral fluency. Color Vowel Complete fulfills ALL of the requirements for Level 1 certification.

Color Vowel Complete combines live training with asynchronous learning to immerse you in the use the Color Vowel® Approach and our pronunciation app, Blue Canoe. During this 5-week course, you will learn how to use powerful, brain-based strategies to teach learner pronunciation, vocabulary development, and oral fluency. Color Vowel Complete fulfills ALL of the requirements for Level 1 certification.

Readers Theater (RT) is a group read-aloud in which individuals perform level-appropriate scripts to tell a story cooperatively. Participants will learn how RT supports development of the learner’s external reading voice (rate, vocabulary, and pronunciation/ comprehensibility) as well as their “internal” reading voice (the voice they “hear” when reading silently), thereby strengthening both oral fluency and reading fluency.

Discover how Readers Theater brings the written word to life while supporting English learner comprehensibility and speaking confidence. In this Level 2 elective workshop, Master Trainer Jennifer Campion will introduce participants to Readers Theater and guide them through the steps and strategies involved in implementing RT in the ESL/EFL classroom.

Instructor: Jennifer Campion

English has 24 distinct consonant sounds. It’s easy to think that we should teach all of them, but what if you discovered that some consonants just don’t matter so much?

Research shows that some consonants are more important than others when it comes to being understood. Which consonants matter most? Which matter least? Join Karen Taylor as we explore consonants in this light. We’ll listen to examples of English L2 accentedness and comprehensibility while taking in the highlights of functional load research and practicing strategies for teaching tricky consonant sounds.

This Level 2 workshop is open to Level 1 certified teachers and is recommended to those who have completed at least one Level 2 Core workshop.

Instructor: Dr. Robin Barr

Increase your phonological awareness and gain confidence in the use of this powerful brain-based instructional technique.

Color Vowel® Yoga is a collection of simple movements that parallel the movement of the jaw, lips, and tongue when producing the vowel sounds of English. These movements serve as physical anchors for producing sounds that the learner may not yet be able to perceive.

In this practice-based workshop, participants increase their own phonological awareness as they gain confidence in leading Vowel Yoga and learn when to use Vowel Yoga as an instructional intervention.

Instructor: Karen Taylor